The Innocence of God

Udo Middelmann
Paternoster Publishing (2007)
ISBN 9781934068045
Reviewed by Dr. Michael Philliber for Reader Views (2/08)


Faced with tsunamis that wipe out thousands of people, brutal wars, pointless slaughter of innocent people at market places, destructive sex trafficking, governments that look the other way or complicit with injustice, and a host of other evils, humans try hard to make sense of evil. They generally seek to construct reasonable systems of answers revolving around God, good, evil, destiny, fate, and karma. Udo Middelmann has endeavored to do the same in “The Innocence of God,” where he has taken head on two important theological systems within Christianity that have tried to answer the problem of a world of evil and a good God, “Calvinism” and “Openness Theology.” Though it seems he has tried to write this for the average layperson, it is more on the level of professional theologians and pastors.

The best Middelmann offers to the reader in “The Innocence of God” is the reminder that in this real world, evil happens, God is innocent of the evil, He has chosen to do something about it and we can too. He draws most often from the biblical book of Job, and shows that true evil does not come from the hand of God. Instead, there is a real fight going on from heaven to earth between the evil one and God, and that humans and creation are part of this fight. Creation is more the amoral scene that suffers and is marred by this conflict, while humans, through their freely chosen decisions and actions, enter into the contest, choosing sides and suffering the consequences of their own sins and the sins of others. Because evil is really loose in the world the decent often suffer disease, confiscation of their property, and injustice, while the wicked frequently go unpunished and gain greater and greater power. Though Middelmann doesn’t give any substantive guidelines on how to be part of the remedy, he at least has done the readers a service by reminding them that this struggle is being waged all around us and everyone of us is choosing sides. We don’t have to stoically bow to some inevitable destiny that all this evil and suffering is somehow ‘God’s will for me and I just need to submit.’

Though Middelmann spends a small portion of time denouncing “Openness of God” theology, he expends most of his book’s space, ink and paper taking on what he calls “Calvinism,” which he lumps in with a fatalistic and deterministic view of the happenings in the world. This is surprising for two reasons. The first is that his father-in-law was the late Francis A. Schaeffer, who was a Christian apologist and a Calvinist (Middelmann is the president of the Francis A. Schaeffer foundation]. The second reason is that Middelmann spends almost seven whole chapters debunking a poorly caricatured Calvinism. He accuses Calvinism of succumbing to the same defeatism as fatalistic materialism and biological, chemical, genetic and social determinism. At one point he even goes so far as to claim that Calvinism is guilty of causing many suicides because it breeds despair in peoples’ minds and hearts. Though this is not the place to have a theological argument, suffice it to say that healthy and wholesome Calvinism is not fatalistic, and agrees that people do freely choose their positions in this cosmic-creation struggle between God and evil.

Though there are only a few editorial slip-ups, the majority of the book fights to be logically consistent. There are occasional contradictions in the writer’s notions, disconnected thoughts between paragraphs, and a shallow handling of several passages of Scripture.

“The Innocence of God” gives the initial impression that it will help Christians to grasp and comprehend the tension between evil and the goodness of God. But as the book unfolds it increasingly becomes a tirade against Calvinism, more specifically a highly caricaturized Calvinism, and is therefore a sad disappointment. I would imagine that most readers would not be satisfied with much of the material, or not completely happy with the writer’s conclusions.

Make comment on weblog